PKK, not Islamic State, is Erdogan’s real target

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. ‘Far from being embroiled in a two-front war, Turkey has carried out hardly any attacks against Isis and has instead focused on bombing raids on PKK camps in northern Iraq.’ Photograph: Adem Altan/AFP/Getty

Luke Harding’s report (11 August) considerably underplays the extent to which Turkey has sought to reverse Kurdish gains in Syria and Iraq on the pretext of confronting Isis. Far from being embroiled in a two-front war, Turkey has carried out hardly any attacks against Isis and has instead focused on bombing raids on PKK camps in northern Iraq. Almost all the jihadis entering Syria did so via Turkey. There are an estimated 12,000 jihadis. That’s a lot to miss. In 2014, when the al-Qaida affiliate al-Nusra captured Kassab, it was clear they’d been allowed to mobilise from within Turkey. Ankara initially opposed the movement of Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga to lift the siege of Kobani by Isis. So far as Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is concerned, the PKK represents a greater threat to Turkish interests than Isis.

Moreover, ditching the peace process has domestic benefits for Erdoğan. The 2015 electoral success of the Kurdish left party, HDP, left Erdoğan without a mandate. Cracking down on “terrorism” now gives him a chance to target the “terrorist- supporting” HDP. In all of this the west colludes, on the basis that a war on Isis is “promised”. As they were in Iraq in 1991, Kurdish and democratic interests have been sold out to expediency once again.Nick MossLondon

• Natalie Nougayrède argues President Obama has “refrained from getting involved in Syria”, declining to implement a summer 2012 plan to arm Syrian rebels (Opinion, 11 August). The exact opposite is true. On 1 August 2012, Reuters reported that Obama “has signed a secret order authorising US support for rebels seeking to depose Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and his government” which “broadly permits the CIA and other US agencies to provide support”. In June this year, the Washington Post quoted US officials as saying “the CIA has trained and equipped nearly 10,000 fighters sent into Syria over the past several years”.Ian SinclairLondon